This is another of those posts that strays from being about “Celebration Rock” toward media ministry that grew out of my radio work. If “Celebration Rock” was about using contemporary hit music to explore themes of interest initially to youth and, later, young adults— the extension of that media outreach was far removed from its roots. For one thing, instead of being on rock radio stations, I found myself on local public television. For another thing, the target audiences of those TV specials were unlikely to have paid much attention to Sting, Bono, or Stevie Wonder. The TV topics? One was a Jesuit paleontologist; the other was the subject of aging.
With some research, delving into the strata of my memorabilia, I could find the exact dates of these TV programs, but for now let’s say that one was in the mid-1970’s and the other aired in the early ’80’s. With my media profile fairly high among Richmonders and Presbyterians, a local pastor, Mike Hall approached me about his interest in the theology of the Jesuit paleontologist Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955), author of “The Phenomenon of Man” and “The Future of Man.” His writings reflect the marriage of scientific research and the mystical life. Priest and scientist, philospher and author, he referred to himself as a “pilgrim of the future.” The Vatican forbade the publishing of his writings, but when he died on Easter Day in 1955, his manuscripts found the light.
Writing that year in “Le Christique” he said, “Everywhere on earth, at this moment, within the new spiritual atmosphere created by the appearance of the idea of evolution, there float– in a state of extreme mutual sensitivity– the two essential components of the Ultra-human, love of God and faith in the world.” In my seminary studies, I had heard of Teilhard, but Mike Hall had become enthralled with the man’s genius, and with his writings which united so profoundly the worlds of religion and science. Mike wanted to use the local public TV affiliate to introduce the public to Teilhard’s work and thought. I said I would help in any way I could.
WCVE in Richmond liked the concept and somehow secured the funding for the program. Mike asked me to host the program which, amazingly, was to be a two hour call-in special, with Mike and a panel of theologians to answer viewer questions. The first hour was devoted to interpreting Teilhard’s theology, and for that Mike had secured permission to use an extensive set of slides produced by (maybe?) the Teilhard de Chardin Society…or some such organization. After the intellectually heavy content and panel response, we opened up the phone lines. We had expected a handful of calls from the seminary community, but were overwhelmed by calls from the general public. Naturally, there were some critical calls from the more fundamentalist theological camp, but we (and the station) were amazed at the number and quality of the questions and comments that came in that evening.
Even now, looking back on that night, it was a pretty impressive and successful program. The public TV folk, ecumenical church cooperation, and the prime time slot (8 – 10 p.m.), and the heady topic combined into a model of what local public television can do so well: sparking community dialogue and intellectual growth.
Once we had established some credibility in that arena, a second venture began to take shape. I don’t even know the genesis of the next project, whether it came from the WCVE staff or our Presbytery. I know that Richmond’s Westminster-Canterbury House, a Presbyterian-Episcopalian retirement community, was involved heavily from the start, with their public relations person Lucy Negus helping organize the production. The idea was to produce a two-hour call-in program on aging. The title was “What Is It Like to be Old?”
The station’s staff worked with us on producing several segments on health, nutrition, housing, and the efforts of various agencies on aging. I not only hosted the program on air, but helped produce and edit the segments we videotaped in the community. Again, phone response during the program was impressive. One difference between the Teilhard calls and these was the personal and pastoral nature of the telephone response. This was not about theory or philosophy; these calls were about life decisions, aid for an aging parent, food for an elderly next door neighbor, and adult day care for lonely seniors. I was very proud that our Presbytery had played a major role in producing that show in cooperation with WCVE, and happy that Presbytery’s most vocal advocate of ministry among seniors, the venerable church educator Eleanor Curry, was able to participate.
Again, these were wonderful models for church and public media cooperation, programs almost impossible for either entity to pull off by themselves. They were programs that were enlightening and helpful.
What’s on network or cable TV tonight? “Reality TV?” It’s garbage.
[So I don't end on such a negative note, I'll add that I did some additional on air work at WCVE. I hosted several discussion and call-in programs, some of which were local tie-ins to national PBS specials, and others locally-produced shows. But none were directly related to "Celebration Rock" or rock music in general. The only CR-oriented TV things I did were on cable. Two local access shows featured interviews with me about "Celebration Rock," one of which was hosted by the legendary Harvey Hudson, who had been the long-time morning guy at the old WLEE. The other was hosted by a minister acquaintance of mine who had his own public access interview show. Like my own occasional public access show "Passages," viewers were few. Very few. Almost nil. Radio, though, was a good place to be!]
